npr — Within science circles, trying to come up with a new universal language was a trendy past-time in the 17th Century. Even the man who discovered gravity, Sir Isaac Newton, took a stab at it. Arika Okrent, editor-at-large at TheWeek.com, talks about its failure to catch on with Weekends on All...
dailygalaxy — The NASA mission that has changed our view of the probability of life in the Universe is in jeopardy. The Kepler has shown that planets are common throughout the Milky Way and the billions of galaxies in the cosmos. NASA officials announced Wednesday, May 15, that...
npr — What do you get when you get a college diploma? To hear David Foster Wallace tell it, you get a muscle that will help you forever after — in shopping lines, overcrowded parking lots, in traffic jams. This muscle, he says, frees you when the world gets painfully dull.» E-Mail...
npr — Atmospheric scientist Ira Leifer installed special air sensors on a camper, then drove from Florida to California, measuring methane levels all along the way. More than 6,000 readings later, he found some noticeable spikes, especially around petrochemical plants and urban areas like Los Angeles.» E-Mail This » Add to Del.icio.us
popsci — Zombie Worm This horrifying worm is an Osedax, also called a zombie worm or bone-eating worm, for a pretty obvious reason: it lives inside the bones of dead sea creatures, like whales, eating and mating and doing all kinds of other gross worm things. It was only discovered in 2002....
npr — A new study confirms that the vast majority of scientists who research the climate accept that the planet is warming and human beings are largely responsible. Yet a large slice of the American public believes that scientists are deeply split about global warming.» E-Mail This » Add to Del.icio.us
popsci — Star...Battles? The USS Enterprises faces off against a much larger warship. Paramount Everyday science, familiar plotlines, and an absence of jargon make this the most accessible Star Trek yet. Star Trek is hardly beginner-friendly. Five television series, 12 movies, and a nerd following that defines nerd followings present a serious...
popsci — TrackingPoint XactSystem Series 1) The hunter marks his prey. 2) The ballistics computer determines where the shot will land in current conditions. 3) The hunter corrects his aim and fires. Courtesy TrackingPoint A special heads-up display lets you tag a target onscreen before firing. The most inaccurate component of a...
popsci — A four-part series on the clean technologies that will set us free Our series follows editor-in-chief Jacob Ward on a trip across the country and around the world to see firsthand...
spectrum.ieee — A start-up ranks data scientists and creates competitions between them for specific consulting projects
popsci — Kooteninchela deppi Imperial College London Pack it up, science, we're done here. Academy Awards continue to elude Johnny Depp, but as of today no one can say he hasn't been immortalized. A 505-million-year-old Cambrian fossil of a creature with scissor-like claws has been named Kooteninchela deppi in honor of Depp's...
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popsci — Fossilized leaves can tell us a lot about out climate history Frank Kovalchek via Wikimedia By studying the way leaves shrink when they fossilize, a team of more than 100 high school students could build more accurate models of climate change. A team of high school students have co-authored a...
popsci — MIT's Cheetah The robot can course at 22 kilometers per hour. Boston Dynamics' Cheetah robot may be the fastest, but MIT's version of the DARPA-backed quadruped robot is proving to be the most efficient. In a newly released video, MIT's Biomimetic Robotics Lab shows off it's new and improved...
wired — Tomorrow marks the official release of the DSM-5, a hugely influential diagnostic guide that defines disorders of the mind. Many experts say it's fundamentally flawed, and efforts to develop a better alternative have begun.
popsci — Illustration of OSIRIS-REx University of Arizona OSIRIS-REx will scoop up a couple of ounces of dirt from the asteroid Bennu and bring it back to Earth. Earth-bound scientists are on track to get their hands on asteroid soil, straight from the source, in 2023. An asteroid-sampling mission, planned for launch...
wired — NASA scientists recorded the biggest explosion from a meteorite impact on the moon that they have seen in eight years of monitoring.
dailygalaxy — For the past 8 years, NASA astronomers have been monitoring the Moon for signs of explosions caused by meteoroids hitting the lunar surface. Lunar meteor showers" have turned out to be more common than anyone expected, with hundreds of detectable impacts occurring...
popsci — Petcube helps your cat stay active/frustrated by chasing a laser pointer. Playing a game of "chase the laser pointer" with a cat is one of the most compelling reasons to get a cat in the first place. But what to do when you go to work, or on a...
popsci — The Simpsons' Popularity Over Time Andrew Clark Plus: how other shows fare over time Who can predict how a TV show will fare two or three seasons out? Some shows only gain momentum after a dull first season, while others break out of the pack early on only to flounder...
npr — Generations of physicists have claimed that time is an illusion. But not all agree. In his book Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe, theoretical physicist Lee Smolin argues that time exists--and he says time is key to understanding the evolution of the universe.»...
wired — Nature takes the long view, mankind the short. Nature picks diversity; we pick standardization. We are homogenizing our crops and homogenizing our people. And Big Pharma seems intent on pursuing a parallel attempt to create its own brand of human ...
popsci — Annalee Newitz Jonathan Wilkins and Breanne Willoughby Join us today on Facebook for a chat with Annalee Newitz, editor-in-chief of io9.com and author of "Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction." Earlier this week, we ran an excerpt from the awesome new book Scatter, Adapt,...
npr — Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman is the latest subject in our Desktop Diaries series, although he has no desk. Kahneman, professor emeritus at Princeton University, won the Nobel Prize in economic sciences in 2002 for his research with the late Amos Tversky on our sometimes irrational intuitions and how they...
npr — A report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization says insects offer a huge potential for improving the world's food security. Peter Menzel, co-author of Man Eating Bugs, describes some insect-based cuisine and the western aversion to creepy-crawly snacks.» E-Mail This » Add to Del.icio.us
